photo D.Bock
A tale of how herbal medicine came about from cooking traditions.
Long ago, at the campfire of a tribe of hunter-gatherers. The fire is being tended by the eldest wise woman in the tribe, who is the chief cook. A hunter comes up to the fire and lays down. He was out last night in the cold, and now, he has pain in his neck and back, his nose is draining water like a cold mountain stream. His face looks pale in the fire light. The old wise woman asks what he wants. He replies blankets to keep warm and he is hungry. When she offers leftover cold meat he refuses. He does try the soup made with meat and the yellow root. Normally doesn’t like yellow root soup, but once he tastes the soup, he asks for more yellow root for in the soup.
A gatherer also comes to the fire not feeling well. She also was out last night. She however is red in the face and her stomach and throat hurts. She does not want food or blankets. Her nose produces a thick yellow discharge, much like it had been cooked thick.
The wise woman looks at her patients, and notices something. The hunter is acting as if the spirit of cold has taken over his body. The gatherer looks like she has been taken over by the spirit of fire. She remembers the last time she saw the cold signs was when a young boy ate too much of the grassy plant at the edge of the village. He had a tight stomach ache and was cold and pale in the face. Then she remembers kids using yellow root to “burn” the mouths of their friends and how they would get red faced when they ate too much yellow root.
She gives more yellow root to the hunter and picks lots of the grassy plant and gives it to the gatherer. In a short time each is feeling better. The wise woman begins to pay attention to how foods make people feel and what that might mean for helping her people survive. Thus was born Herbal Medicine.
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